[Dixielandjazz] Modern Jazz Listen - Mainstream?

[Margaret Squires]

Hey Randy,

As far as Modesto is concerned, if the people are dancing while you're
playing, you have connected with your audience!!


----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Fendrick" <jfendrick@bak.rr.com>
To: <JimDBB@aol.com>
Cc: <Dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 11:10 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Modern Jazz Listen - Mainstream?


> A couple of years ago, the California Academic Decathlon group choose
> jazz as a topic for the music portion of their competition.  The
> Bakersfield Symphony has for years played a concert each year
> demonstrating the music to be tested over and then giving a lecture
> that helped young people understand what the music was.  This year, for
> instance, the music was from the 19th century and generally things that
> most symphony orchestras play.
> For the jazz presentation, the committee presented me with a CD and
> asked if I could replicate the groups. This included Armstrong, Parker,
> Dizzy, Miles, Clifford Brown, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and
> Charles Mingus.  The first thing that I had to explain to the Symphony
> was that the soloist were not playing written parts, but were
> improvising, that is creating for the moment. Which is really foreign
> to many symphony types.  The first tune that they wanted me to recreate
> was a Louis Armstrong version of St James Infirmary.  Upon hearing the
> tune, I found that it wasn't Louis playing and singing but  rather Jack
> Teagarden.
>   Anyway, to make a long story short, one of the tunes that we played
> with the big band that morning was Sing Sing Sing, the Benny Goodman
> arrangement.  I still have the video of 16, 17 and 18 year old kids up
> and dancing in the isles as we played the tune.  When it was finished
> they screamed for 5 minutes for more.  During the morning, they heard a
> dixie band playing Bill Bailey, a bebop group playing Donna Lee, or is
> that Indiana? and so on.
> A year or so later, I ran into an music educator who said that he was
> at a conference where one of his colleagues stopped him to say that he
> had been at that concert and thought that there was more learning going
> on there than you would ever get in a classroom.
> This music is made to dance to,  look at the young kids of three and
> four that are dancing in front of the band when playing for a store
> opening or somewhere that real young people can hear it.
> I would agree that if you want to kill this music, then stop the
> dancing.  I must admit, however, that when we play venues where dancing
> is shunned to the rear on in another room, like Pismo or Three Rivers
> in California, the band has more fun as it is easier to connect with
> the audience.   In Modesto and Fresno where dancing is more acceptable
> this sometimes removes the band from the audience or, at least you feel
> that you aren't connecting with your audience.  We always try to play
> tunes that are pleasing to who our audience is.  When dancers are in
> the forefront we try to take tempos that they can dance to.  Some
> tempos are much too quick for dancers.  Our version of Naughty Sweety
> is played very fast with a vamp in 3 that keeps returning.  Very
> difficult to dance to but enjoyable to listen to.
> Anyway, its late,
> later,
> Randy Fendrick
> Southside Chicago Seven
> Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra
>
>
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